Post navigation

Rigging Up – Up Close and Personal

When you’re a gate guard, you can be miles from the site you’re guarding. We were so far away from the frac pond in Tilden, that we never saw it! It’s different here.

It all began at sunrise

At this location, we figure we’re about 100 yards from the site. Since I doubt we’ll be this close again (and I’m not sure I want to be), I thought I’d share some pictures this week. (I know you aren’t all interested in gate guarding – I promise to mix in other topics soon).

This is where things stood – or laid at the end of the day yesterday.

John was the first crew guy in from the old site at 6:30.

Always a cheerful: “Y’all have a good day!”

The day started out with a whole lot of traffic and quite a bit of caliche as the rig move continued.

The traffic didn’t slow down until around 7:00 p.m. I’m writing this at 3:30 a.m. and I still have a truck about every 15 minutes.

Just like moving your RV, it isn’t the distance, it’s the packing up that takes the time.

~

~

Eventually, the rest of the derrick made it in.

~

~

~

I’m having some ‘technical difficulties’, so I can’t put these in a folder or a slide show tonight. I’m sorry for the inconvenience. You’ll just have to keep scrolling down. Maybe I’ll get it fixed by tomorrow.

~

Lantern 3 is a comparatively small rig – about a third of the size of the 16 and 17 that do the horizontal drilling. Still, you get a feel for how big everything is when you see the guys on it!

~

The derrick still isn’t up but will be by the time I wake up today.

It was around 104 for most of the afternoon. Thank you to Heidi for taking the majority of these shots. It was so hot that the owners even had to go home to gulp some air conditioning before coming back to take more photos. I really don’t know how the guys do it. This crew will all finish up their tour this morning and head home for a week and a fresh group will pick up where they left off. I’ll pick up where I left off tomorrow night, too.

You’re so right Kit! This particular rig is loud – but very interesting. Our CM from 16 came in today and said he’s taking us to 17 (about 10 miles) with him tomorrow, so the show is over. I do still have a lot more pictures that I’ll post. It’s been great fun watching the whole process. So, after a month, exactly, with this rig, we’ll begin tomorrow, baking brownies and learning all the new names! 😀 That’s the life of a gate guard, isn’t it? Life is Good! 😉